The All 4 Each program, created by the Ontario Co‐operative Association, won the Award of Excellence in the Mobilization and Involvement category of the 2014 International Summit of Cooperatives TOP-COOP contest. All 4 each is a suite of youth, co‐operative and community engagement programming for the classroom that started in Ontario and is now used across the country.
“It is an incredible honour to be recognized with an international award for All 4 Each,” said Kerr Smith, Education Manager of On Co‐op and author of the program. “This affirms that the various components of All 4 Each combine to produce a sustainable, efficient and effective program for mobilizing and connecting co‐ops and credit unions with their local schools.”
The All 4 Each program builds awareness of the co‐operative model and values among high school students through professionally‐written lessons and activities, which are aligned with school curriculum. The All 4 Each program grows and spreads from school to school by creating relationships between co-ops and credit unions and their local school. Smith developed ‘train the trainer’ mentorship sessions that engage co‐op sector leaders and youth presenters to give fully‐developed presentations on co‐ops and credit unions in the schools as part of the program. The program also inspires students through the “Create A Co‐op Challenge,” a provincial competition (for now) that encourages young people to research and then create their own co‐operative enterprise proposal. The 2014 Co-op Challenge winner was a co-operative tutorial service idea, called Tu-op, whose creators walked away with $1,000 in prize money.
Now that the program has gained international recognition, it has the potential to reach beyond Canadian borders to bring co-operative education to high schools all around the world. Read the full press release here.